The Great Waters conference includes 16 colleges in Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, and the league will not be contesting a fall 15s season. Commissioner Mike Good released the following statement:
After many discussions and feedback from the universities within the Great Waters Women’s Rugby Conference, the very difficult decision has been made to officially announce the cancellation of a competitive league season for fall 2020. As conference administrators and leaders, it is our responsibility to keep our student athletes safe, as well as our referees, coaches, friends and family members. With the decisions being made by many of our universities already, there is no safe way to host a competitive rugby season.
Great Waters will be partnering with the National Collegiate Rugby Organization (NCR) as well as other conferences to provide support to teams. Areas will include fundraising, recruiting, player retention, skill development, knowledge development, and safety guidelines for school approved club activities.
Great Waters will be waiving the portion of 2020-21 dues directly related to the fall 2020 conference competition. We will be working with other conferences and NCR on revision to their 2020-21 dues structure.
Every club should work with their university to make sure they maintain themselves as approved student organizations in good standing for the 2020-21 academic year.
While in-person competition is not possible, we are currently working on creating a virtual competition that will take place this fall. The focus will be to keep teams and players engaged in rugby related fitness, knowledge and camaraderie. Please stay tuned for the official announcement of the virtual competition coming soon!